


Counting the Hours You’re Awake

by Cassy27



Series: Can You See My Scars? [2]
Category: Iron Fist (TV)
Genre: Asshole Harold, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Physical Abuse, Sex, Sweet Danny Rand, Ward gets emotional, Ward!Angst, blowjob
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 10:38:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12629190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cassy27/pseuds/Cassy27
Summary: Nothing between him and Danny will ever be the same again, not after the fall-out from the severed head. In need of a distraction, in need of a gentle touch, a kind voice, Ward turns to Danny Rand yet again. Only this time, there's more than one reason he seeks him out. And one of those reasons is Harold Meachum. Nothing will ever be the same again, not after Ward betrays the one person who is trying to help him escape his father.





	Counting the Hours You’re Awake

**Author's Note:**

> Part Two of my Ward-madness. This follows 'Give Me What's Left of My Life', but you can read this without reading the other first. I want to thank Shells19 for being my awesome beta and not giving up on me despite my lunacy.

Ward pushed his back against the wooden frame of the doorway, his mind focused on the pain that seared through his flesh. It was sharp, stinging, and drew a hiss from Ward’s lips, but he kept pushing himself against it, because the pain helped him focus, kept the edges of his vision from blurring. Lifting his hand to knock against the wood of the door, Ward halted and stared at the doorknob instead, wondering if he could really go through with this. Last time, it hadn’t been his fault. Last time, it had been Danny who had followed him like a lost puppy throughout the building before forcing his way inside his apartment. Last time, it had been Danny who had started it all. This time, however … This time, it was Ward standing at Danny’s door.

He couldn’t do this. Hand falling, head lolling forward, Ward huffed out a breathless laugh and closed his eyes. What was he hoping to achieve anyway? Nothing good could come of it. Nothing good had come of it last time, had it? Pushing himself away from the doorframe, intending to leave, to turn around and make his way back toward the elevator, Ward lost his balance and crashed against the door, his mind not entirely working and most of his body aching.

Thankfully, it wasn’t made of glass.

As he sunk to the floor, unable to keep himself from staying upright, strength leaving his legs, the door swung open, revealing a certain Monk-boy with a bat held high above his head, hands gripping it so tightly his knuckles had turned while. Danny ‘Monk-boy’ Rand was ready for a fight.

“What the hell, Ward?” Danny roared when his gaze found Ward lying awkwardly still at his feet instead of an assailant.

“Shh.” It was hard for his pointer finger to find his lips and the image must have been more pitiful than hilarious, because Danny lowered his bat and sighed, saddened. “Your voice is hurting my head.” A lot of things were hurting his head, really, but he hadn’t yet lost the ability to blame everything he could on Danny. And he meant _everything_. Truth be told, he should probably have made his way over to a doctor rather than come here, because the ache pounding in his nose wasn’t getting any better. When the tips of his fingers touched it, he groaned and found the skin there remarkably hot. It was probably, likely, broken.

“Are you drunk?” Danny demanded. Crouching down, he placed a hand on Ward’s knee, the gesture meant to calm him, but Ward flinched instead and quickly shoved Danny’s hand off of him. “No, you’re not drunk,” Danny answered his own question, eyes narrowed to slits. As quickly as he could – and Danny could move awfully quick, unnaturally quick –, he grabbed hold of Ward’s arm and pushed up his sleeve, all the way to his elbow.

There it was. Ward stared at it as if he’d never seen the sticker before in his life, but the truth was far more awful. It had begun with painkillers, his back hurting after what he’d always claimed to be a tennis accident. What had really happened, was that Harold had shoved him down some stairs and he’d heard something crack. After a few months, one pill hadn’t been enough anymore to dull the pain. Then two hadn’t been enough anymore. Then three. Now pills weren’t enough anymore. Ward couldn’t remember the first time he’d tried heroin. Sure, he’d felt like shit after and facing Joy had been one of the hardest things he’d had to do, but even heroin had become normal for him. It only went to show how fucking messed up he was.

Harold was right. He’d never amount to anything. Not on his own at least. What had he accomplished on his own? Besides a pill- and drug-addiction? Right, a big fat _nothing_. Still, that didn’t mean Danny had to shove it in his face.

Pulling his arm back, a scowl lining his features, Ward pushed himself back onto his feet and desperately tried to find his balance. The last thing he wanted, the last thing he fucking needed, was for Danny to come to his aid again. Like he was an infant who couldn’t take care of himself.

 _Well, he couldn’t, couldn’t he?_ whispered that nasty voice in his head.

“Fuck off,” he hissed at Danny, angrily shoving down his sleeve again, hiding the sticker with a dragon drawn on it from sight. For some time, while in rehab, he’d been doing alright. He’d managed to deal with a few of his … more pressing issues. He’d talked to a psychiatrist about everything Harold did to him, though back at the clinic he’d spoken in past tense. He’d tried to explain that his father wasn’t really dead, had tried to explain that he’d come back from the dead with the help of The Hand, but he’d quickly accepted that such talk would only lead to more time in an isolation cell; every time anyone had tried to tell him differently, had tried to remind him that his father was dead – he _wasn’t_ – he’d snapped and lashed out, and Ward had quickly grown tiresome of those ugly white walls.

Danny curled an arm around Ward’s shoulders and guided him inside. “Come on,” he spoke gently. Ward didn’t know why he let him touch him, didn’t know why he accepted his comforting words. It was a nice change, he supposed. “Let’s get you cleaned up. You do know there’s blood on your face, right?”

“Yeah,” Ward sighed. Eyes closing, memories of earlier flashed before him and his body began to tremble. Suddenly, he became very much aware of even the smallest sore. His more-than-likely broken nose, his headache, his wrist, his back, his muscles, his joints. Hell, even his scalp hurt. His heart beat frantically inside his chest, to the point where even his heartbeat hurt. So he let Danny guide him toward the couch, because he was too tired to protest and if he remained on his feet for a little while longer, he’d crash anyway.

He was too tired to do anything. That was his problem, really. He never did anything. When Harold grabbed him by the collar, he didn’t try to escape. When he spat curses and insults at him, he let the words land with a blow instead of ignoring them. When he beat him, he didn’t try to avoid the punches. The sign of a weak man. That was what Harold did to him; he made him weak, compliant, and broken. It was pathetic.

Having been lost in thought, Ward hadn’t heard Danny leave his side and he hadn’t heard him return, not until he felt something cold and wet against his face. Ward jumped, hands lashing out, catching Danny’s arms and stopping him from whatever the hell he was that he was doing.

“It’s okay,” Danny quickly said, leaning back, away from Ward. His eyes stood wide, shocked, surprised, and full of sorrow. The guy felt fucking _sorry_ for him. “I shouldn’t have touched you without warning you first, without asking you first.” He did nothing to try and free himself from Ward’s grip, despite Ward’s fingers digging painfully deep into his skin. It had to hurt. Or maybe Danny just wasn’t such a pussy like he was. “This looks really bad, Ward. What happened?”

Letting go of Danny, Ward threw his back against the soft pillows of the couch and let his head fall back, eyes focusing on the ceiling above. “It’s not a matter of _what_ happened,” he muttered. “It’s a matter of _who_.”

“I know,” Danny said. When he moved to clean the remaining blood of Ward’s face, he did it slowly and softly, meticulously, always making sure that Ward knew exactly what he’d do next, where he’d touch him next. The fact that his other hand rested on Ward’s shoulder didn’t go unnoticed by Ward either. He knew what Danny was trying to do, that he was trying to comfort him, calm him, and what frustrated Ward the most was the fact that it was working.

His heartbeat was slowing down and his breathing became more even. Danny’s strokes were almost hypnotizing and, for a moment, Ward could forget about the pain echoing through his body.

“I pissed him off,” Ward said quietly, gaze still up. “I didn’t know when to shut up.”

“You don’t have to deal with him anymore, you know,” Danny said. He hit a particularly sore spot underneath Ward’s left eye, causing Ward to hiss out in pain, and Danny instantly withdrew his hand, muttering a sincere ‘sorry’ under his breath. His hand moved from Ward’s shoulder to the side of his neck, his thumb brushing against a still-forming bruise, the colors ranging from dark purple to light blue. Ward truly didn’t know how Harold managed to paint his skin like that sometimes, so colorful. “The Hand is defeated, Harold is free. There’s nothing left for you at that penthouse anymore.”

“You make it sound so easy.” Ward reached for Danny’s hand against his skin and lowered it so it would sit in between them. He didn’t like the notion of Danny touching his bruises, as if the color of them, the dirt, would somehow rub off on him. He didn’t want that. Danny wasn’t battered like he was. He’d like to keep it that way. “But what if it were your father up there?”

That momentarily silenced Danny. Tossing the rag aside – Ward refused to look at the redness of it, his blood – Danny ran a hand through his curls and sighed. “There isn’t a chance in this world that I’ll ever understand what you feel like.” His voice was soft and understanding, and for the first time, that didn’t anger Ward. “But I’m glad you came to me, that you feel you’re safe with me.”

That wasn’t exactly how he’d put it, but Ward felt too tired to argue. Safe. It was an alien concept to him. Unable to stop himself, Ward glanced around the room, to the corners of the walls, to the lamps and to the TV, to the cabinets and to the frames hanging up, wondering if Harold was seeing any of this, the controlling, manipulative, privacy-invading bastard that he was. As long as Harold was living in this world, Ward would never feel safe, not here, not anywhere, and there was very little anyone could do about it. Killing his father again just seemed like too much goddamn work.

Danny lifted Ward’s sleeve for a second time that evening and Ward watched as he removed the see-through sticker from his arm.

“This, though,” Danny held the sticker up high, the light shining through, “this isn’t going to help you.”

It actually did help, but Ward didn’t voice that thought. Danny would only fire argument after argument at him as to why it really didn’t, and Ward wasn’t mentally strong enough to listen to a Danny-produced rant right now. The effects of the drug were beginning to wear off and Ward already craved for another hit, another sticker. Hell, he’d settle for a few pills if that was all he could get his hands on, but there was nothing to be found here. Something about the body being a temple to guard and respect. Whatever. Danny probably didn’t even have alcohol around. Honestly, Ward was beginning to regret his decision to come here.

Then again, he’d had little other choice.

 _Fucking Harold_.

“Danny.” Saying his name had Danny’s attention snap toward him within a heartbeat. Ward would have felt honored under different circumstances. “Can we–?” He stopped himself. He couldn’t do this, could he? _Why not?_ whispered a small voice in the back of his head that sounded terrifyingly like Harold’s, _You’ve done this before_. Swallowing heavily, Ward righted his back and stared into Danny’s unearthly blue eyes. He still didn’t know whether they had always had that color or if it was something Iron-Fist-related.

“Yes, Ward?”

Ward liked the way Danny spoke his name. No one else spoke his name like that. Harold usually spat it out, like a word he wanted to get rid of, something that needed to leave his mouth sooner rather than later. Joy spoke his name with kindness, yes, but there was also always an edge to it, a sharpness. Joy was his sister and he knew that she loved him like he loved her, but they were still siblings. They’d both fought to earn their position at Rand Enterprise, but Joy had to fight harder. Somehow, Ward had fit in more easily. Probably because he was a guy and she was a girl, and Joy had always resented him for that. She’d never admit that, but it was true.

But the way Danny said his name … Always well-thought of, always deliberate. Never rushed. Never malicious. _Not yet_ , hissed Harold inside his mind.

Pressing his hands against his face, uncaring of how much that hurt, Ward turned away from Danny and wondered what the fuck he was doing. His breath was coming out in short bursts and his shoulders were shaking. Tears were forming behind his eyes.

“Ward, what’s wrong?” Danny shifted behind him, closer toward him, and placed a hand on Ward’s knee, squeezing it ever so gently. Danny would never try to hurt him. Danny would never try to break him. Because Danny was freaking Monk-boy, with a head full of ideals and a soul full of kindness. He’d be a terrible businessman, really, the kind of man Harold had taught him to despise, to see as weak, and yet here they were, Ward being the broken one and Danny the strong one. Karma, Ward decided, existed.

“What’s _wrong_?” Ward echoed hollowly. Turning suddenly, the swiftness and brutality of the motion caught Danny off guard. Danny pulled his hand back. Ward latched onto his shirt, knuckles turned white with the force of it and, for a moment, for one hundredth of a second, Danny looked frightened. “Look at me, Danny.” His voice wasn’t his own. Too loud, too torn, too fragile. “What the fuck do you think is wrong with me?”

“This is Harold,” Danny said, head shaking, stubbornness in his gaze. “He’s messed with you again.” His hand moved to rest against Ward’s cheek, his thumb stroking a sore patch near Ward’s lips. Then again, everything was a sore patch right now. “But you’re with me now.”

With his hand still latched onto Danny’s shirt, Ward pulled the younger man closer and kissed him, lips crashing together, only neediness and desperation between them. Danny didn’t resist, didn’t pull himself back, didn’t try and convince Ward that this was a terrible idea, that they’d done this already and that nothing good had come of it – but then, Danny didn’t know that, did he? Furious with himself, furious with Harold, furious with the world, Ward deepened the kiss and pushed Danny backward, against the soft cushions of the couch. Danny parted his legs, giving Ward the space he needed to move in between them and close the distance between them once again.

Danny’s hands moved to unbutton Ward’s shirt, the tips of his fingers maddeningly soft against Ward’s bruised skin. Ward moaned at the sensation, and only when his shirt slid down his arms, down his back and to the ground, he remembered.

Pulling away from Danny, gasping for air, frantically searching for his shirt, Ward jumped up and away from the couch, but it was too late. Danny had seen.

“Ward.” Shock and horror vibrated in his voice.

Halting, freezing in place, Ward forced his eyes shut, pressing the heels of his hands against his face. He didn’t need to see what he heard in Danny’s voice on his face. He knew what his back looked like, because despite not actually having seen it, not having seen the bruises and welts and cuts, Ward _had_ seen it a hundred times before already. Shuddering where he stood, knowing that he should back out now, that he still could, Ward shrugged on his shirt again – or he tried to at least. His muscles protested against the movement, pain flaring up somewhere near his left shoulder, and Ward hissed in pain.

“Oh, Ward,” Danny whispered. With his warm hands placed against Ward’s back, he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Ward’s neck. It was a loving gesture, meant to ease his mind, to end the tremble to his limbs, soften the pain, remind Ward of the fact that Danny cared for him, whether he liked it or not, but all it did was force Ward to break even further. Because it had come this far. He couldn’t escape his father anymore, nowhere, not with anyone. “Let me take care of these,” Danny whispered to him from behind his back, his lips brushing the shell of Ward’s ear. His arms curled around Ward’s middle, holding him. “Let me take care of you.”

Turning in Danny’s arms, Ward claimed the man’s lips again and pushed him back, guiding him into the bedroom. If this was to happen, if this _had_ to happen, then he’d at least use it to his advantage. _‘Let me distract you for once.’_ Wasn’t that what Danny had said the first time? And it had worked. For a while, Ward hadn’t been living in this world. For a moment, he’d been living in the moment and nothing else had mattered. There had just been him and Danny and the pleasure shared between them.

When the back of Danny’s knees hit the edge of the bed, he fell back, the mattress dipping beneath his weight. Danny looked up at him with wide, blue eyes, lips parted, but no air seemed to leave him. The muscles of his stomach stood taut, not an ounce of fat to Monk-boy’s body. Ward lowered himself onto the bed as well and removed Danny’s shirt which had ridden up his body. Ward would have torn it off, but he feared he lacked the strength. Head down, Ward pressed a trail of kisses down Danny’s chest, down his stomach, all the way to the edge of his jeans. Once he got there, he unzipped Danny’s pants and pushed them down, continuing his trail, nose in the soft little hairs, lips against the head of Danny’s already hard cock. Last time he hadn’t gotten the chance to taste Danny, but now he’d relish in it, would take everything that he could, and more. Ward mentally lifted his middle finger in the air, because _fuck you, Harold, you sick fuck._

Danny made the sweetest of sounds when he was being sucked off, his hips lifting off the mattress now and again, his legs shifting where they lay. Ward moaned when the first drops of pre-cum landed on his tongue, his eyes fluttering shut. The darkness around him helped him focus on Danny. He couldn’t see him anymore, but he could feel him and taste him and hear him, and that was enough.

Danny’s fingers curled through his hair, tugging at it, but never hard enough to hurt. Ward hooked a hand around Danny’s thigh and placed his leg across his shoulder. He could feel the heel of Danny’s foot dig against the skin of his back, sending pain flaring throughout his body, but Ward merely arched into the touch. This was what he deserved, after all. He took pleasure and earned pain in return.

“Ward,” Danny gasped, back arching off the bed. “I can’t hold–”

When Danny came in his mouth, Ward eagerly swallowed it all down. Danny’s cock twitched against his tongue, giving its last, and only when Danny’s moans turned from pleasurable to uncomfortable, his cock overly sensitive now, did Ward pull back and look up at Danny with wet eyes. He didn’t know when he’d started to cry, he simply praised himself fucking lucky that he hadn’t begun to sob somewhere in the middle. That would have killed the mood.

“Shit, Ward.” Danny quickly sat up and pulled Ward close, his hands on either side of Ward’s face, their lips brushing together. “Dammit, I shouldn’t have let you do that.” He buried his face in the crook of Ward’s neck and pressed another kiss against the skin there. His arms folded around Ward’s shoulders and pulled him down against the mattress.

Somehow, their legs became entangled and a cotton sheet covered their half-naked bodies.

It wasn’t to be stopped. The tears came and Ward couldn’t stop them, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he willed them away. If Harold could see him right now … He probably could. Fuck! Pressing his face against Danny’s chest, against the tattoo of a dragon, like its strength would rub off on him, Ward held on to Danny as if he were holding on to dear life itself. How long could he keep doing this? How long could he continue living like this? Only when he realized the sounds he kept hearing close to his ear was Danny hushing him, whispering comforting words to him, did he manage to find a grip. Inhaling sharply and waiting for his voice to return to him, for his heartbeat to calm down, Ward rolled onto his painful back and stared up at the ceiling, focusing on the warmth of Danny’s body still engulfing his own.

“Ward?” Danny brushed a hand through Ward’s sweaty hair.

“I’m fine,” he said. Looking sideways, he found Danny throwing him a skeptical glance. “I’m fine again, for now,” he corrected himself. He took hold of Danny’s hand, the one brushing back his hair, and pressed a kiss against the back of it. “You knew what you were in for, Monk-boy,” he sighed dolefully. “I’m not the sanest, most stable guy in New York.”

Danny slipped a hand down the front of Ward’s chest. “Is there something I can do to help?”

“You’ve already helped.” Somehow, Ward managed to summon a smile. It was small and it probably resembled more of a grimace, but it wasn’t something, a start. Ward couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been able to produce anything close to a smile. “Can we just sleep?” He asked, eyes already closed, hand curled around Danny’s neck, thumb playing with one of his curls. “I’m tired. Exhausted, really.”

“Sure,” Danny said, a hint of satisfaction in his voice. “Sleep, Ward. I’ll be here when you wake.”

Exactly.

~/~

A loud crash was what woke them. Ward’s first instinct was to reach toward the nightstand, reach for the gun he kept somewhere in the top drawer, but he wasn’t home, so there was no gun to be found. His second instinct, when the events of the past twenty-four hours returned to him, crashing into his head like a sledgehammer’s blow to his skull, was to search for Danny’s gaze. Danny didn’t look back at him, however, instead diving under the bed to retrieve a Samurai sword, thinking they were under attack.

In a way, they were.

Well, Danny was.

A dozen men dressed in black, with the letters DEA marked on their backs, stormed into the bedroom, with guns raised high, and easily forced Danny down to the floor, the Samurai sword quickly knocked from his hands. There was an explosion of noise, of men shouting, of footsteps thundering against the wooden floorboards, of guns being locked in place, of vases and frames falling and breaking.

Ward sat on the bed, on his knees, watching it all happen with an empty look on his face. There were a lot of emotions he should feel – anger, guilt, fear, panic – but instead he felt nothing. He was too damn exhausted to feel anything.

Danny twisted and turned in the men’s arms as they dragged him across the floor and forced cuffs around his wrists. He was demanding to know what was going on, who they were, what they wanted, but the men didn’t grant him any answers.

“I’m sorry, Danny,” Ward found himself saying. Instantly, Danny’s head snapped toward him, his gaze finding his for the first time since they’d woken up. Nothing but confusion lay in his bright blue eyes – a first. It felt like a fist to his gut. “I’m really sorry.”

“You set me up.” Danny drew in a sharp breath, realization dawning upon him. “You did this!” _Did what?_ Distract him long enough so that he would never see the DEA-men coming? Keep him busy long enough so that Harold could set the last part of their plan in motion and spread the false intel, spread the lies he’d so carefully concocted? Use Danny, like the asshole he was? Yes, Ward admitted silently, he’d done all that.

“Ward!” Danny screamed his name as the men dragged him out of the bedroom. “Ward, talk to me!”

Ward threw himself back against the soft sheets of the bed and closed his eyes. The worst part was that there lay no accusation in Danny’s voice. Not yet, at least. It was bound to come. If not now, later. It always did.

“Ward, please, what’s going on?”

Squeezing his eyes shut now, Ward hid his face behind his hands.

“Ward!”

And then the door was thrown shut and Danny’s voice disappeared. Harold’s voice appeared instead, in his head, causing tears to force their way past Ward’s defenses. _Good boy,_ Harold whispered to him, and then Ward threw up beside the bed.

~/~

… earlier …

~/~

“You plan to do what?”

Ward stared at his father with nothing but disbelief in his eyes. Honestly, he should know better than this, should have learned a long time ago that he was supposed to hide his thoughts here, but there was just something about Harold that made him weak, that made him divulge whatever went through his head within a heartbeat. And Harold knew this. He was observing his son meticulously, catching even the smallest of twitch in his features. Ward tried to recover himself, straighten his face, empty his eyes, but it was too late.

“Don’t play dumb, Ward,” Harold said. Each word was pronounced with utmost care, Harold wanting the message to land with his son. Which it easily did, Ward never having been able to hide the twitch to his right eye whenever his father said something degrading. Harold huffed out a disappointed breath of air.

“This is madness,” Ward tried. He was standing at the opposite side of his father’s desk, standing tall above him, and yet it was Harold who was looking down at him, eyes nothing more than two narrowed slits. Ward swallowed heavily, processing the idea Harold had just shared with him. He tried to think of something, anything, that could make him change his mind, because this, _this_ , was something he couldn’t let happen.

For a while already, he’d been trying to get out, had been trying to leave this madness behind, but every time he’d tried to leave, something – or someone, yes, you, Harold – had pulled him right back in. Ward was getting sick and tired of the manipulations, despite having known nothing else his entire life, but now things were getting out of control. Now events were crossing over from insane-territory into freaking-mind-wrecking-territory. This wasn’t what he’d signed up for, why he’d decided to help his father thirteen years ago. They weren’t fighting The Hand anymore. He wasn’t trying to save his father anymore. Hell, Ward had lost track of what it was exactly that he was trying to achieve.

“This makes perfect sense.” Harold rose from his seat and stepped around the desk, the tips of his fingers sliding across the polished oak wood. Ward couldn’t help but flinch back a little, shoulders slumping forward, head down. When Harold was looking at him like that, with unblinking eyes and a secretive smile playing around the corners of his thin, white lips, Ward was always reminded of a predator stalking its prey. And he was very much the prey, always. “We’ve come this far already, son, so now is not the time to back down. Soon, Rand Enterprises will be ours again.”

“It’s already ours, Dad,” Ward argued. It was a foolish decision, he knew that, but he just couldn’t help himself. When Harold had a plan, when an idea played in his head, there was nothing that could be said to change it, certainly not by Ward. Still, he had to try _something_.

“No, it’s not.” Harold leaned back against the desk and folded his hands casually before him. Again, it made him physically smaller than his oldest child, and yet it was Ward who felt like the infinitely small man, Harold’s boot hovering over him, threatening to crush him like a meaningless ant. Why couldn’t he have just let him go when he’d decided to find help and go into rehab? And why had he forced him into it later on? None of Harold’s decisions made any sense to him, but Ward didn’t doubt that Harold benefited from them all, one way or another, big or small.

“As long as a Rand walks around in its hallways, it will never truly be ours. I want only what’s best for our family, Ward, surely you want the same. Surely, you understand me.” Harold reached out a hand and curled it around Ward’s wrist, holding it, the pressure casual, but very much present. Ward had to restrain himself from pulling it free. “When you, me, and Joy are the sole managers, only then will it truly be ours again.”

“But this plan–”

“Dammit, Ward!” Harold’s eyes flashed with anger and his grip on Ward’s wrist became crushingly painful. Ward did try and pull his wrist free then, but Harold refused to let go. He was strong for a dead man, a fact that never ceased to amaze Ward. “I’ve already set everything in motion. All that you need to do, is do as you’re told. You got that?”

“But this is _Danny_ we’re talking about.”

He needed to shut up, he knew that, and yet the words were leaving his mouth before he could truly, thoroughly consider them. At times like these, Ward knew that his father was right when he said that he was and would always be an idiot who needed a guiding hand to help him run Rand Enterprise, to help him make it in this world. There were days where Ward cursed Harold and raced across the city in his fancy car, fucking it all, part of him hoping he’d crash against a wall and that’d be the end of it. But when he stood so close to his father and felt his judging, patronizing, disappointed eyes on him, all Ward wanted to do, was beg for forgiveness and ask for a comforting touch. 

Harold wouldn’t offer him a kind word today, though. His eyes spoke of too much rage and if his grip on Ward’s wrist tightened even more, he might as well go ahead and break something.

“Danny Rand is nothing but a pawn to us, do you understand that, Ward?” Harold was spitting out the words. His nails dug deep into Ward’s skin, drawing blood, and then he twisted Ward’s arm, forcing him onto his knees. Ward screamed in pain, eyes squeezed shut, but the deafening crack of bone didn’t come – not yet. “He will be arrested for fraud, for drug-trafficking, for working with a criminal organization, and then we’ll seize control of the company again.”

“But he helped you,” Ward forced out through gritted teeth. Whatever Harold had in store for him, in this life or the next, he could take it. He’d been able to take it since he was but a boy, but like hell was he going to let his father drag Danny under in this mess. Just like he’d always tried to protect Joy. He’d failed there. He couldn’t fail Danny. “And this is how you’ll repay him?”

Fingers curled in his hair, tugging at it, making tears well up in his eyes, and then Harold knocked his head forward, against the wood of the desk, causing a thousand stars to explode before Ward’s vision and a hot white pain to flash near his nose and forehead. As soon as Harold let go of him, Ward tumbled back, falling onto his back. A string of curses left him as he covered his face with his hands, finding his fingers bloody when he withdrew them.

“I don’t like this, Ward,” Harold said, voice low and guttural.

Ward couldn’t move, couldn’t bring himself to stand up and face his father, not while pain still engulfed his face, not while his vision still blurred around the edges. Maybe he’d pass out – he’d like that, actually. With some luck, he’d wake up right here with Harold gone. But then, who would warn Danny? Cursing some more, Ward spit out some of the blood that had trickled into his mouth and tried to sit up.

“Dad, please–”

“I thought it was just a one-time thing,” Harold carried on as if he couldn’t hear his son’s pleas. Maybe he really couldn’t. When he got like this, angry and outraged, like a man possessed, he wasn’t aware of his surroundings anymore. Sometimes, Ward used the opportunity to sneak away, let Harold rage on alone, but that was out of the question now. “I thought it was just a way of letting off steam, fulfill your basic needs, because you’re a man, I realize that, I understand that, but now that I hear you talk like this …”

“Dad,” Ward tried again.

“Did you really think I didn’t know?” Harold spun around on his heels, blazing eyes finding his son’s, and if looks could kill, Ward knew he’d already be dead. Ward swallowed heavily, the pain ebbing away – only a little – and forced himself to sit up. Blood was still streaming down from his nose, staining his lips, chin, neck, and shirt. He should add pressure, squeeze his nose shut, but all Ward could do, was stare at his father in utter terror of what would follow. “You thought you could keep it a secret from me?” Harold raged on. “There’s nothing I don’t know about you, Ward! I just never thought you’d let yourself get mixed up with this weakness. I didn’t raise you like this!”

Ward watched in horror as his father pressed a certain button on the keypad of his computer and different screens behind the desk lit up. They all showed the same thing, but from different angles. Nausea overwhelmed him, not because of what he was seeing, but because of the fact that his father was seeing this, too, that he had been watching this. He’d known for a long time already that Harold kept tabs on him, that he had hidden cameras everywhere, but this … _this_ made him want to throw up. On the various screens were him and Danny, in bed, with Danny’s arms locked around his neck and his legs wrapped around his hips.

“Dad …” It was all he could utter apparently.

“Sleeping with the enemy, Ward,” Harold was looking at the screens, too, shaking his head, hands clenching and unclenching beside him. “I expected a lot of things from you, but not this. You’ve disappointed me on more occasions than I can count, but this one tops it all.”

“Turn that off.” Somehow, Ward made it onto his legs. Somehow, he managed to straighten his back. The floor was slippery beneath his feet. When Harold kept watching the screens and the sounds of moans echoed through the penthouse, Ward closed his eyes and bit down on his tongue. “Please, Dad,” he tried again. “Please turn that off.”

When the sounds stopped, finally, Ward opened his eyes again, only to find his father standing right in front of him, his face inches away from his own. Before Ward could do anything – step back, shove Harold away, say something – a fist knocked him in the stomach, knocking all air from his lungs. Ward toppled forward, only he didn’t fall to the floor. No, Harold was there to prevent him from doing so, a strong arm around his shoulders forcing him upright again.

“From all the men and women in New York you could choose from, you decide to fuck Danny Rand?” Harold hissed into his ear. His hand pulled at Ward’s hair, keeping him close, keeping him from moving away from him. Ward couldn’t breathe, couldn’t come up with a counter-move, couldn’t think of a single thing that he could do to release himself from his father’s grip, because fear latched onto him like a claw, paralyzing him. “And now you think you’ve somehow bonded? Forget it, Ward. Tell me you’re not that naïve.”

Ward gripped his father’s arms tightly, not to hurt, but to hold on, to prevent himself from falling. “What are you talking about?” He demanded, a frown on his face despite nothing but pain surrounding him – his head, his nose, his wrist, his stomach.

“Come on, Ward, you’re smarter than this.”

The video. Harold had watched it, either live or after. Ward didn’t want to think too much about it. Sure, he’d known about the hidden cameras, but he’d at least thought his father would grant him privacy in his bedroom. It now became clear Harold’s control, his thirst for domination, knew no boundaries. But if Harold had seen everything, he’d also heard what he and Danny had been telling each other, and Ward had told him quite a bit.

Fuck, he should have known nothing good would come of it.

“No, I don’t think we’ve bonded.” He meant what he said. Danny had all but forced his way inside his apartment after the dreadful events with the severed head. He’d asked him to leave, both politely and rudely, but Danny had been stubborn and had refused to respect Ward’s wishes. Because Danny was a young, obnoxious, headstrong, annoying, brilliant, frustrating, maddening guy.

“Good, good, I’m glad to hear that,” Harold said, calmness in his voice. He let go of his son and took a step back.

It come as a surprise to both Harold and Ward that Ward didn’t instantly crash to the floor. In fact, he was beginning to gather himself back together, find the broken pieces of himself and stick them back. His breathing evened out and his nose didn’t hurt as much anymore. It wasn’t bleeding anymore either, so that was nice. Sighing with relief, Ward pressed a hand against his stomach and focused on his breathing. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.

“On your knees, Ward,” Harold said.

 _What?_ Ward’s gaze snapped toward his father’s, his eyes wide and frantic. “Dad, come on,” he said, the tone of his voice somewhere between panic and defeat. It had been foolish on his part to think that it was over now, that his father had calmed down and would leave him be. No, there was still the matter of the plan Ward wasn’t on board with yet.

Harold unbuckled his belt. “Don’t make me repeat myself a second time,” he warned.

“You don’t have to do this,” Ward tried. Tears came to his eyes, and Ward cursed himself for not proving to be stronger. He was thirty years old, he should have been able to escape his father’s clutches years ago, but here he stood, bloodied and bruised, completely at his father’s mercy. If Joy were to see them like this … No, he refused to let his mind wander there. “I get the plan, I understand why it must be done, I’ll do my part.”

“Everything has changed now,” Harold sighed, pulling the belt free from the loopholes of his pants. “Ward?”

There was nothing he could do. He’d already tried everything. Hell, he’d already killed Harold once before, and even that had failed. There was no escaping him, not now, not ever. His body shaking, from head to toe, Ward lowered himself to his knees and hoped that, if he were to comply, if he were to show his father that he would accept the punishment that didn’t really fit the crime, Harold would go easy on him. But who was he kidding? Harold had never spared him before, so why would he now?

“I’m sorry, okay?” He said, voice trembling. “I should never have let things get so out of hand with Danny.”

“I’m glad you see that now,” Harold smiled. He let the leather of the belt slip through his fingers. A promise. “But don’t worry.” He stepped before his son and looked down at him with cold, calculated eyes. Ward wondered what it was exactly that he was seeing. Certainly not his son. A tool maybe, an object to use as he pleased. Or a fleck of dirt constantly sticking to his shoe, something he couldn’t rid himself of. Whatever it was, Ward knew better than to hope for anything else.

“I’m a business man,” Harold said, the words he spoke smooth and well chosen. “I shall use this to my advantage, exploit this as only I can.” He brushed a hand down Ward’s face, a touch that would usually soothe, but Ward flinched away instead. “Something good might come of this after all.”

 


End file.
